Two senior staff at Australia’s top selling technology magazines have exited as part of a restructure of tech titles at ACP.

Glenn Rees announced he was leaving his post as editor of PC User on Friday, and will be going freelance after more than two decades with the title.

Nick Race, technical editor of APC Magazine – formerly known as Australian Personal Computer – is also no longer on-staff, but will continue to write for both titles.

PC User’s Dan Gardiner will head up the combined team’s technical department. Melanie Pike will be deputy and production editor across both titles.

“These magazines are not in danger of closing. Nor is one being folded into the other. However, we had two editorial teams producing very similar content – which did not make commercial sense,” ACP’s director of media, public affairs and brand development, Deborah Thomas told Mumbrella.

A plan is underway to differentiate the two titles, with PC User launching a tablet app and more content moved on to its website.

Will they still include those CDs and DVDs with the so-called “free full versions” of software which are either the trial versions or else won’t install at all? I’ve been burned too many times by these ripoff mags to ever buy them again.

These tech magazines have been on the slippery slope since the Internet, the ability for anybody to get free and up-to-date information which is much deeper and more timely than a print magazine could ever provide eroded the privileged position that tech mags held for decades. It was only a matter of time. Next stop will be both magazines and their websites merged, probably the sites merged first under a new ‘brand’ without the old baggage of these legacy mastheads. Both websites are terrible anyway compared to their big print competitor PC Authority plus online-only ventures like CNET.

Best of luck to Glen Rees – he is a gentleman, and has been a stalwart at PC User – the glory days of the mid-to late 90s are long gone, but Glen stayed the course, and developed a lot of young talent at PC User. Good luck Glen and well done.